Your scheme for the plug wires should work just fine. What I was trying to explain, in a somewhat clumsy fashion, is that with a wasted spark ignitio...

My understanding is that you should be able to use any spark plug wire on any coil tower. What I don't know for sure is what goes on with the ignition...

Richard is correct about selecting a desirable gear for a given speed. What I like to do is to keep the motor RPMs between 3000 to 4000 RPM and the se...

The airhead ignition is known as "wasted spark". In a "wasted spark" ignition set up, I don't think it matters. Wasted spark is when both cylinders e...

Your 1983 should not have an issue with the deleted circlip on the output shaft. That is a 1985 and later issue. It is possible to find a "false neutr...

I choose alcohol free gasoline when I can find it. If your bike's motor has not had a valve job to include updated exhaust valve seats, then some sort...

Wild guess here. Clutch slipping, maybe? It's not unusual to have to re-adjust the clutch cable and throw out mechanism after a transmission remove an...

Applying heat might help but might also bubble the frame paint in the area. Is the right side pivot bolt/pin also removed? Letting the penetrating o...

Assuming your bike is OEM equipped, my experience is that a rotor gone open is the most common fault. Next most common would be a bad diode in the di...

Duncan's Beemers is in Mass. However, I agree with Richard about Learning to maintain and repair your own motorcycle.

Welcome Ian, "something isn't right" seems to be the case here. Am I to understand that your throttle cable set up is a single pull cable from the h...

When connecting a battery, I attach the positive lead first, ground lead second. That eliminates the potential for a spark when working with a wrench ...

That looks like part of a valve seat to me. The only way to assess just how bad things have gone would be to dismantle that suspect cylinder for a vis...

On early airheads, there is a parallel connection inside the STARTER relay that is employed to distribute electrical potential to the functions that a...

Since the fuses in an airhead are associated with the lighting circuits, confirm that those are good. They are located inside the headlight bucket.